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Hi guys!

After obsessing about bonsai for quite some time I finally went to my local gardening store and bought a juniper. They had them in two different sizes and I bought this bigger one because I felt that would give me a few years head start with an already decent trunk. After repotting and trimming the roots, I trimmed quite a lot of the branches also and had thoughts of wiring it to give it a better shape as almost all of the branches went upwards. I wired a branch upwards intending for it to be the new "crown" and wired one of the lower ones outwards just because I thought it looked nicer but after that I stopped, mainly because the pruning and root cutting I did made me worried because I feel like I took off too much.

I just wanted the opinion of some of you veterans and pros who I'm sure knows considerably more. This is my first bonsai, what do you guys think of it so far? And what do you recommend I do with it next? I must admit I feel a bit lost, despite the fact that I've been reading up on the topic for so long.

PS: I know aluminium wire is the best way to go but they didn't have it In my local store, so I went with these padded green ones they sold. I've ordered some online that I'm expecting soon hopefully.

Hello and welcome.
.. where to start... you did so much so wrong...

Ok , first of all: horticulture. Trees belong outside, inside they will die, without any doubt. Related to this: the health of your plant is thé most important thing in bonsai care. First of all learn to keep your plant healthy, then do something bonsai-ish in the appropriate moment of the year. Each technique has a specific moment in the year to be executed, and in general do not do more than one thing per year. You repotted, pruned ànd wired your tree, ànd you have it inside, which will result in a dead tree very very fast.
So, place your tree outside, water regularly , do not fertillise untill you see good new growth ( if that happens), and leave it alone for at least a year to recover. Use that time to study general horticulture, go through this forum, and ask things before you abuse a plant, not after. Look at your tree and ask yourself why it doesnt look like a bonsai, look at juniper bonsai and compare them.
It is impossible to turn a nursery plant into a bonsai in a few hours if you are new to this , if that would be the case then bonsai masters wouldnt spend an entire life to become one.

Thank you for replying! The tree is in my balcony since I live in an apartment and will be exposed to sunlight during the majority of the day. I angled it to get as much sunlight on all branches as possible, but this still means a small portion of the back will be without, do you think this will be an issue in the long run?

Every tree in the forest does not get sun on the north side. They do fine. Well, in the northern hemisphere.

Part of design is picking the front of the tree, so put the front toward the sun.

Or you can turn your tree a quarter each week or so

Thank you guys for responding!

Just out of curiosity, how would you guys go about with the plant I bought today if you had bought it?

Wold you have just repotted and let it rest or would you do something more to it?

I am not sure I would buy such a tree. But if I do, I would do the same as I do with all my trees. Slip pot into much bigger pot without disturbing the roots. Then grow for a full season without any pruning, wiring or repotting. Just make sure the tree adapts to my climate and care and study the tree. If strong during the season I do the first initial styling in the winter/spring after dependingon specied. If not, I just wait another year....or two If neccesary. After the initial styling I leave them again a season or two. Then I start working on the roots.

Same here, I wouldn’t have bought it at this moment , with the knowledge and skills I have now. 7 years ago... I was as eager as you and made mistakes too.
That being said, to answer your question: now I would do the same as Tropfrog, leave it be for at least a year and look at it a million times from all sides. As long as I don’t know what to do with it I will leave it alone.
Why did you want to repot- was there any need for it?

I dont think it was repotted in the meaning used in bonsai, maybe just slip potted?

Did you do any work on the roots? How much soil was removed and replaced?

ZeroKelvin wrote: Hi guys!

[...]

I just wanted the opinion of some of you veterans and pros who I'm sure knows considerably more. This is my first bonsai, what do you guys think of it so far? And what do you recommend I do with it next? I must admit I feel a bit lost, despite the fact that I've been reading up on the topic for so long.

I agree with what others have said, but now what is done is done.
So how to move forward from here?

As you've already been told, first thing is not taking good care of the plant and making sure it survives, as it had it rough.
Now: as you probably realised already, at this point you don't have a bonsai, but a thick stick in a pot, with some very long branches and some foliage at the end of those.

Not the ideal place to start from, but may be a good learning experience to understand your plant and how it works and react.

What you want now is to promote backbudding as much as possible, in the attempt to get some foliage to grow closer to the trunk; once that is strong enough, you can cut those long branches back to the new growth.
Any other styling action will have to wait after that.

I suggest spending this time -while you take care of the plant and allow it to recover from what it already went through- to study and get the basics of how to obtain the backbudding above.
From the picture it looks like that's a needle juniper (rigida, maybe?), and despite junipers being in general quite forgiving, needle junipers tend to be the most finicky amongst them.
So don't be too upset if it doesn't work as well as you'd expect with this first plant.

Courses here on bonsai empire are a good start to learn what you need; several bonsai professionals run their own teaching platform too. Then there's the free knowledge you can find on the internet; just know that you'll also find a lot of wrong ones, tho, like for any other topic on the internet.

Try to build your knowledge the way you can and feel free to come back here whenever you're confused.

Also be aware that a lot (timing and type of care in particular) depends heavily on your local climate, so finding a local bonsai
club and learning from its members is usually helpful to understand how to decline the theory to your local environment.

And: learn to be patient. And I mean seriously patient.
Even assuming the plant responds wonderfully and starts backbudding ASAP, it will be a 3-5 years journey just to compact the tree, and a 5-10 years to start getting something really resembling a bonsai.

As you'll read in here many times, this is a marathon, not a sprint.